Sakku School open, but questions remain about ‘issues’ cited by education officials
Education Department notes some parents may be keeping their kids home from school
Coral Harbour’s Sakku School is now open after officials from the Education Department met with the local district education authority on Wednesday. (File photo)
Updated August 18 at 5:45 p.m.
Sakku School in Coral Harbour is open, after the local district education authority apparently ordered its sudden closure earlier this week.
However, whether the school ever actually closed — and if it did, for how long — remains unclear despite requests to clarify the situation made to the Department of Education from Nunatsiaq News.
The school is open “though some parents may be choosing to keep their children home from school,” said Education Department spokesperson Krista Amey in an email Thursday.
She added the department “is aware of issues” there.
The school was scheduled to welcome students back Monday to start the new school year.
However, messages posted to a community Facebook group indicated the school would remain closed until Education Department officials arranged to meet with the local education authority. Those posts have since been deleted.
The local DEA has not responded to questions from Nunatsiaq News.
Aivilik MLA Solomon Malliki told Nunatsiaq News on Wednesday the local authority’s concerns are related to human resources.
He confirmed then that he was told the school had not opened Monday, saying he learned of the DEA’s decision that night.
Nunatsiaq News asked the Education Department on Thursday to clarify whether the school had been closed earlier in the week but is now open, or if it had never actually closed.
On Friday, Amey responded that the school “reopened for students on Monday, August 14 as per the 2023-2024 School Calendar.”
And so far, no one is saying what issues the local authority wanted to discuss with government education officials.
Amey confirmed that staff from Education Minister Pamela Gross’s office and Department of Education staff met Wednesday with the Coral Harbour district education authority.
“The safety of students and staff is a top priority at the Department of Education,” she said, without elaborating on her reference to student and staff safety.
Nunatsiaq News asked to speak with Gross about the situation in Coral Harbour, but Amey said Gross would not be available for an interview.
Amey declined to provide details on what was discussed in the meeting, saying Education officials “are not permitted to discuss confidential matters about any employees while employed or post-employment, this includes individual teachers or other school staff.”
Note: This article was updated to include further information from the Department of Education
According to recent news reports there are thousands of teachers and educators needed across Canada. Our whole education system and the way we value our teachers is broken.
Between teachers and nurses, both seem to be areas that need mass improvement to increase recruitment to the field.
Would someone in Coral Harbour care to tell the rest of us what’s going on?
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This may be a local issue, or it could be part of a bigger picture. Other communities may be dealing with similar situations.
The need for teachers everywhere is evident. Parts of the US have even turned to a 4 day school week due to the shortage.
I’m from Coral. I tried to make a write up. Let’s see if it makes it past the censors.
Hi Juutii,
Thanks for trying.
I don’t think your write-up made it past the censors.
Perhaps you included specific names of individuals.
Maybe if you used “a new teacher”, for example, rather than a name, the censors might let your submission be read by the rest of us.
Taima
So the Coral Harbour DEA tried to close the Sakku school over an HR issue! That’s ridiculous! They deprived their students a much anticipated reunion with their peers and an education over an HR issue!!!! Shame on them! Schools should be closed due to weather not HR issues! They wouldn’t even talk to the media about their decision! Elections are coming up. Time for a change.
schools are open for another year. I have heard complains already, younger students are having a hard time understand very heavy accents from parts of the eastern speakers in English. and to top it off they bring their class culture to Canada, my grand-daughter is noticing it already…